All Elves:
Breakfast is served in the blood and ectoplasm soaked dining hall. The meal consists of flying cavefish eggs, a dish generally reserved for the Deep Elfin ruling class. Zrallin volunteers to help feed those too injured to serve themselves. He seems to quite enjoy giving Miriam grief pointing out how the tables have turned from 24 hours ago, when Miriam was the nurse. Zrallin quickly becomes quiet when he notices the sludge elf is still holding onto one of her chains with her good arm.
-7 servings of cave caviar
Caboose:
You remain in the dining hall after breakfast to attempt to move the volatile globs of goo. The first thing you try is freezing one solid: You succeed but the now solidified mass continues to burn your hand on contact. Thinking on your feet you grab a piece of cloth and use it to pick up the frozen blob. The solid fails to seep through and burn you. You spend some time diligent searching the dining hall, freezing and collecting every bit of the strange substance that you come across.
+1 Bundle of frozen ectoplasmic substance
You consult the voices in your head; perhaps they know of the substance and its uses. When asked about the goo Argus Bloodripper chuckles.
"I'll cut you a hell of a deal involving that gunk. I turn that substance, along with some other junk you have around this fort, into an object made from a material so terrible and awe inspiring that it is generaly unworkable by mortal hands. I'd need temporary possession of your body to work the stuff, but I'll write it into the contract that I shall fade from existence should I fail to return your body to you in a timely manner."
"What's the catch?" you ask.
"Because this would be your first contract with my kind I'll offer a low price. Two members of your group are half night elf. I would like to see one or both of them to take the first step towards reaching their potential for vileness and depravity. If you get either Selande or Dusk to willingly partake in the consumption of another sentient being, you will revive your payment. Because you have no control over the will of your targets I cannot in good faith impose a penalty for failure on your part. Think about it, and take your time."
You have no clue where you could come across an easily victimized sentient being, but Argus offers you a few leads. acording to him the dwarves of the fortress knew of an Antman hill only two and a half hours walk from here in the caverns. It may still be inhabited. You are also informed that the goblins have recently executed a human prisoner and are using whatever their pet spider didn't eat as filling for their soup as dinner over the next couple days. You once again wonder how Argus could possibly know what the goblins are up to but you are interupted by the injured Ochita.
Your fellow dawnelf asks you to give him a piece of the ectoplasm substance to examine. You pull a chunk out but fail to notice until its to late that the burning in your hand is not just from what you are holding, but from an upwelling of magical energy violently escaping from your system. You hand Ochita the mass and all goes black.
You wake up sometime later laying on a table with a terrible pain in your chest and in your arm.
You have swapped bodies with Ochita
Miriam:
You lie in the hospital. As the effect of the Blood Lichen wears off you are struck with a terrible pain. You lie in bed stoically bearing it until Zrallin comes along to feed you. The night elf mocks you for being in the same position that he was in just a day earlier. You point out that his injury came at the hands of an inanimate object, and that yours was earned in glorious combat. You also point out that you have suffered similar injuries before, and as long as you have the chemicals to enter a bezerk state you can ingore the pain in your chest and fight one handed. You raise one of your chains and offer him a demonstration. He wisely chooses to flee. You spend the rest of your morning drifting in and out of sleep and complaining to anyone who will listen that you are running quite low on Blood Lichen.
Karratan:
"Fuck yeah!" you exclaim as you leap from your bed. You wolf down your breakfast quickly before bolting into the caverns. You run through the mazelike cave system for hours, following to the best of your ability the directions laid out in your dream. You eventualy come to a clearing with walls made of Limonite. You quickly search the clearing but find no dragon. You do however find a pile of humanoid bones and mining equipment. This unerves you a bit but you decide to take the opportunity to upgrade to a nice steel pickaxe you find in the grasp of one of the skeletons in the pile.
-1 copper pick axe (Discarded in the caverns)
+1 fire opal encrusted steel pickaxe
Using your new pick you quickly mine out a large boulder of the iron ore. No sooner dose the chunk of rock hit the ground than a problem comes to mind: There is no way under the earth that you could possibly haul a boulder back to the fortress before lunchtime. Dejected you return to the fortress.
+1 Limonite boulder (Left on floor of cavern)
Dusk:
You place your hand on the spirit and she bares her soul. She is sad because her kind is enslaved to the heart of the earth. Doomed to kill or be killed at dawn and mistrusted at all other times. However with the gift she gave you, you may be able to change that. "Use this wisely..." She says as she places her hand on your forehead once more. Hughes of red, brown, and orange flash through your head and a great pain grips your entire being. Suddenly your eyes flicker open and you find yourself lying in bed a changed elf.
Your experience perk has changed to "Spirit Maker": You can summon a terraspirit at will. The process is painful, time consuming, and leaves you very hungry. The spirit will become aggressive at dawn, but its aggression can be focused elsewhere with a bit of persuasion.
You experience flaw has changed to "Forbidden Power": You practice the magical arts, which Elfin society generally considers a right reserved exclusively for the dawnelves. The elfin societies of the old world punished young mages with torture and execution. You suffer a penalty to all social interaction with elves. The group may be inclined to punish you if you are found out.
You grab a quick meal while you reflect on your new-found knowledge.
-1 serving of caveshark
Disaed:
Your burn wound stings with a supernatural pain. Despite your best efforts you fail to relieve or reduce the burning. Desprate for help you run to Ochita's bedside and ask him to look at it. He takes one glance at it and then reaches out and touches it with his good hand. The swelling and pain subside greatly. Ochita informs you that the burn was charged with Geomancy and that prevented normal healing, but it should be fine now. In exchange for his services you give your fellow healing a quick check up, confirming what you both suspected: The Dawnelf will be bedridden for months without supernatural help.
After looking at Ochita you tend to your own wounds. Sometime later you are interupted by Zrallin. To your utter amazement the warrior asks you to attempt to treat Miriam. You are by no means fond of the sludge elf, and you know Zrallin despises her even more than you do. When you point this out he counters that there is no way in hell that he can defend the population of the fortress on his own, and despite her stupidity Miriam can be useful for keeping out things that want the group dead. You do not particulary feel like doing something unselfish at the given moment, so you dismiss him by saying that any fool with a blade and some adhesive can fix Miriam; its not like she has any organs one could accidentally damage. "Fixing Miriam is below someone of my great medical skill!"
Your arm injury is now minor
Zrallin:
While waiting for the goblins to arrive you spend some time thinking. You have spent most of your life as a warrior in the deep elf caste system. Learning non combat tasks is supposed to be above you. The only one with significant negoitation skill amoung you however is Disaed, whom despite having saved your life still strikes you as a bit weird, possible unstable. You decide to take a stab at throwing off the chains of your past and learning how to negotiate and barter. What better way than to learn from the master.
You decide to practice by getting into an argument with Disaed. You know he has one heck of a silver tounge so you decide to argue for something that you wouldn't mind loosing and attempt to talk him into treating Miriam. As expected Disaed deflects your argument and sends you on your way defeated. You feel however that you have learned a trick or two from the debate.
You have gained a level in barter
Around lunchtime two goblins arrive at the fortress. One of them is Towercap, the goblin who lead the drill last night. He introduces you to his half brother, a freakishly huge goblin named Horace. Horace is clad from head to toe in steel plate armor. You convince both goblins to disarm and come inside. They come bearing gifts in the form of a large crate filled to the brim with purple cloth. Horace explains that the cloth is a thank you gift from their leader Urist, so that he owes the elves no outstanding favors when he negotiates the terms by which the group may remain in the valley.
+30 units of royal reed fiber cloth
Horace explains that he and Towercap will stick around until the evening when they will escort one or two elves to the Longhouse to negotiate with Urist over dinner.
Selande:
After breakfast you go back to sleep. Several hours later you wake and decide to go hunting for healing herbs in the valley below the fortress. You make your way through the thick Forrest and quickly determin that most of the plants in this area are completely alien to you. You do find however a bush of the genus Malries. The roots of the Malries bush are often chemically active. Some are coated with a deadly toxin, others produce a chemical that induces vomiting and serves as a laxative. You don't feel comfortable bring back a substance that may or may not be poisonous, so after a bit more searching you give up and return to the fortress.
Ochita:
You decide that since you are bedridden, you might as well spend some time meditating and attempting to make contact with the Gods you discovered. Their indifference overwhelms you, perhaps you should try and convince the group to attempt to earn their favor. Your meditation is interrupted by Disaed who wants you to look at his arm. The burn marks are charged with Geomancy making traditional healing almost impossible. You quickly and effectively dispel the charge.
You have gained a level in prayer!
You eventualy notice that Caboose is gathering and collecting the ectoplasmic goo from the Terraspirit. You ask to see a chunk of the frozen substance and Caboose complies and hands you piece, warning that it will still burn. You reach out to grab it and suddenly feel a surge of magical energy. You realize that it is Caboose, and not you who is suffering the symptoms of being magically overloaded right before you black out.
You wake up on the floor a minute later. To your amazement you feel no pain in your body at all. You climb to your feet and notice a strange looking high elf laying on the table in front of you. You relise that you and Caboose have just suffered a case of the swaps, an uncommon symptom of magical contamination that causes a mage to switch bodies with another elf. The swaps usually last 6 to 24 hours.
You have switched bodies with Caboose!
You use this opportunity to look over your own body. All your broken bones can easily be cured with the same metal infusion therapy that you used on Zrallin. You have no clue what the consequences would be if were mess up the procedure and kill off your own body while in somebody else is inside it. This is a window to avoid possible months in bed!
It is now noon. The next turn will cover 6 hours until dusk. The elves should select somebody to go with the goblins and meet Urist shortly before the turn ends. Remember just because you know something dosn't mean your character does!
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Topic: Elfin Refugees - Rage Against the Dying of the Light (Read 30984 times)